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Topic: Does the Emperor Get Haircuts? (Read 1533 times)

I agree it is basically EU but it's become something I accept... the Alliance seems sort of intolerant as well during ANH.

I've integrated the xenophobia of the Empire into my little Star Wars world though. But I also think sentients were serving in the Clone Wars, we just didn't see them in the movies.

Has Lucas ever spoke much about the Empire's anti-alien thoughts? Besides Chewbacca's backstory some, which Lucas seemed to have some kind of handle on since he told Ford about it, was there ever much else said? West End Games seemed to come up with the whole ideological background to the Empire which I assumed they took it from the Empire not having aliens and the Alliance using them post ESB. I just always liked it as a further level of ****** Imperial behavior.

I wrote a short fan-fic story about the subject of the empire's anti-alien bias a few years back. You can read it here if you're interested in a different perspective on the possibility. http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1051925/

The speciesism of the Empire is still EU to me. But wait, this topic is EU.

How is that EU? We never see anything buy humans serving the Empire in the flicks. They also don't seem to tolerate women or non-caucasians if you're tossing out the EU.

Agreed, it's all right there for easy inference. If you choose not to believe that, cool, but this is not an idea some dweeb ret-conned into a book somewhere along the line. If anything, the EU RUINED that theory with the glaring outlier known as Thrawn.

Before there ever was any EU, it was obvious to me as a kid that Empire = Old White Dudes with English accents and Rebellion = Everyone else.

Logged

Slice you open like a tauntaun, faster than the Autobahn, Or a motorbike in Tron, do the deed and then I'm gone.

From ANH, there's an idea that the Empire was almost entirely human, with Tatootine being a frontier outer rim planet territory barely garrisoned.

Palpatine's associates were aliens in the prequels, his force-damed apprentice was an alien (and his master, too). He may or may use speciesism to aid his power base later on, but he clearly isn't racist that would imply he cares about something passionately beyond power. He happily discards anyone for his own gain.

No Imperial women, but then the Emperor's EU not-really-an-apprentice was Mara Jade. Of course, lack of women in the movies was widespread (Yavin 4 is a sausage fest), reflecting the view of women in combat that many cultures had at the time. Female rebels pilots in ROTJ were cut or redubbed.

Aren't the rebels prejudiced? Leia calls a sentient being many years older than her "a walking carpet". C-3PO, owned by rebels, has disdain for Jawas. Many Bothans died, laments Mon Mothma, but we didn't invited a single one to this meeting.

The old EU said that Mon Calamari was attacked by the Empire, hence they allied with the Rebellion, now the Mon Calamari were part of the old Republic.

It's a mess. Maybe someday there'll be a gritty reboot that either has widespread use of aliens on both sides or eliminates non-human organic sentients entirely. Chewbacca can be a tall human who speaks in grunts. Jabba the Hutt, a morbidly obese guy or just a fat Irishman. Someone speculated that Yoda was human, and that's what humans look like after hundreds of years...small, greenish, pointy-eared and with less digits.

I've always simply viewed it that women are there, other ethnic groups, and the Empire had some near-humans involved (IE: Thrawn, perhaps some other groups) we just don't see them in what we ultimately see in the films. I've always just taken what the films show with a grain of salt that way.

I agree too, actually, that I don't think Palps is a xenophobe so much as he just doesn't care and lets those under him decide to use an anti-alien agenda to A) wrangle the galaxy somewhat, B) get payback on alien races that caused trouble for him in the recent past or in the Clone Wars, and C) because it helps unite the greater population of humans towards the new Galactic Empire via propaganda... Basically they say, "Look what these aliens caused... Look what they did!", and blah blah blah. Many humans across the galaxy agree, saying look at the Trade Fed, Banking Clans, etc. And then through some twisting other species that tried to help the Jedi are also vilified, like Wookiees, Mon Cal, Quarren... Some aliens would try to assimilate maybe, while others would openly fight back. In that time from ROTS to ANH, I feel like there's a growing disparity in how humans view other species, and also how other species may view humans as well.

And TOTALLY agree on Leia... 3P0 is being 3PO I think, but Leia, that's really horrid I felt. Funny, at the time, but when you cut away and over-analyze Star Wars it's so f'd up really.

I really do feel though that the Empire has a lot more variety to it than we see, even home guards for planets of aliens trying to integrate into the new Empire... I think as an organization they'd know they couldn't be completely xenophobic towards a galaxy that vast. They'd do things subtly, at the very least. I think they'd do the same with other races of humans and women as well, if they were doing it. Keep women out of the Stormtroopers, or a glass ceiling for most... Thrawn and other similarly held back people would only get to the level of power they attain because they impressed the right people... which is actually Thrawn's story. He reaches Grand Admiral status directly from Palpatine. If he were relying on someone else with the power to grant that rank to him, he may well never have gotten it.

Yavin IV, total sausage fest indeed... Leia's like Smurfette.

Again, grain of salt and all, I figure women were there... There's enough jumble in those ranks, I feel sure women were in there, even if women weren't actually in there. I figure a few aliens were sneaking around in there too. Just nothing larger and/or significantly smaller than the average human male I guess.